Today we held had two different workshop classes. The first was Diana Norma Szokolyai’s workshop “What’s at Stake?” This workshop asked the writers to look at what is at stake in a piece of writing. This involves asking what a character wants, what they’re willing to do to get what they want, and what challenges they face. Doing this allows the writer to show the reader the central driving force of the piece. 
After that, we held our second writing workshop of the retreat. Following the Liz Lerman method from our last writing workshop, the participants critiqued a few new pieces of writing. The pieces critiqued showed a variety of writing styles, from poems about chickens to stories about people living in New York City. That evening, the participants gathered for a screening of David Shields’ movie I Think You’re Totally Wrong, an adaptation of a book he wrote with Caleb Powell. Directed by former student James Franco, the film starts as an adaptation of the novel before spinning off into its own unique form. The film was followed by a Q&A with Shields, where the participants were able to ask him questions about the film, from questions about his performance in the film to asking about the production.
Author Archives: carriganak
Day 4 of our Paris Retreat: Tour de Workshop
For Sunday’s class, our participants engaged in the first of our retreat’s writing workshops. Led by CWW directors Rita Banerjee and Diana Norma Szokolyai, our participants shared samples of their writing with the class. The participants came to the meeting having read six short pieces sent out the previous evening and with notes for critique.
The workshop was based around the Liz Lerman method of writing workshops. In this method, the critiques are done in three stages. The first is to discuss what is at stake in the piece. The second is to offer any notes and positive feedback. The third is where the constructive critique is offered, as well as where the author can answer any questions.
Our writers will hopefully take this feedback and apply it to their work, whether it is a revision on the piece critiqued or for any of their other writing. The Tour de France may have concluded today, but this workshop offered the beginning of some new creative work.
Day 3 of our Retreat: Wandering the Gardens of Versailles
Today we took a break from our writing and yoga workshops. The CWW arranged an excursion to the Chateau de Versailles. Our staff and participants headed outside Paris to the former home of Louis XIV to view the palatial gardens. While wandering around the expansive grounds, our team saw some sculptures by world famous artist Anish Kapoor. Tonight was a special Musical Garden show, where all the fountains and gardens were lit up and timed with classical music to create illuminating and creative shows. The evening ended with a fireworks show, bringing an explosive end to a wonderful day.
Gardens of Versailles
A sculpture by Anish Kapoor
Versailles
Versailles
Fire timed to the music
Cauldron of dry ice
Versailles
A large sculpture by Anish Kapoor
Statue at Versailles
Musical fountain with lights
Fountain show with lights and fog
CWW Staff Diana Norma Szokolyai and Victor Pachas
CWW Staff member Diana Norma Szokolyai
Some of our staff and participants at Versailles
Day 2 in Paris: Building Character and Practicing Yoga
Day 2 of our summer Paris retreat began with our usual congregation on our hotel patio. Today, CWW directors Rita Banerjee and Diana Norma Szokolyai led a workshop on character development. Szokolyai shared a few tips for making believable and memorable characters, even sharing a few writing exercises from authors like Rachel Basch, Cai Emmons, and Edie Meidav. Banerjee discussed the differences between dynamic and flat characters, and even talked about how both can be useful for a story. 
The class also shared some of their favorite dynamic characters, ranging from novels like Invisible Man to shows like The Sopranos. The lecture ended with participants by writing short prompts based on the exercises, using their own characters or people they noticed walking around the Rue Daguerre.
Some of our students also went to Elissa Lewis’ yoga classes today. Hosted at a nearby yoga studio, Lewis led two 45 minute sessions, using a variety of yoga styles and practices, including the use of aromatherapy.
It was a quiet day today, but most of our participants are taking it easy. Tomorrow, some of our participants will be heading to Versailles to see the palace and the events there, so be sure to check back to see how that goes.
First Day of our Paris Retreat Offers a Lesson in Brevity and a Special Reading from Our Guest Teacher
The first day of our summer yoga and writing retreat began with an excellent workshop from our guest lecturer, David Shields. Shields presented a lecture on the art of brevity. This was to help our participants practice writing less words than they normally would, but still managing to be effective with what they did write. 
After reading some examples from authors like Amy Hempel and Jerome Stern, the participants took some time to try and write their own brief pieces before sharing them with the group. 
Later that evening, our participants gathered at Shakespeare and Company, one of the oldest and most famous bookstores in Paris. 
There, Shields read excerpts from his most recent book, I Think You’re Totally Wrong, a novel he co-wrote with his friend and former student, Caleb Powell. Reading for Powell was Charles Recourse’, Shields’ French translator. 
The two were introduced by CWW director Rita Banerjee, and answered audience questions following the reading. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcKF8TsRgtg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWY2JLLX9uU The event concluded with some complementary wine from the Shakespeare and Company staff and an author signing by Shields. 
Apply to CWW Summer in Paris Writing Retreat by Deadline May 5, 2015!
The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop Summer in Paris Writing Retreat will take place July 22-30, 2015 in France. The retreat offers participating writers of all genres and levels to work alongside award-winning authors and editors. Participating writers will hone their craft and expand their writing skills, while working on new or existing projects.
There will also be time to explore the city of Paris in all of its historical, literary, and romantic charm. Situated in the heart of Paris’ Montparnasse neighborhood, amongst the fresh and popular open air markets and charming boutiques, the hotel where we will stay is full of charm and our Moroccan themed classroom will offer a wonderful oasis to practice the writing life.
Retreat activities will include craft of writing seminars and creative writing workshops, literary tours of Paris, daily yoga and meditation classes, and manuscript consultations. Optional add-ons include excursions to neighboring cities such as Versailles. If you’re serious about writing and want to soak in some exquisite French culture this summer, join our retreat in Paris! Tuition is $2950, which includes lodging in central Paris, daily creative writing workshops and writing seminars, manuscript consultations, daily breakfast, daily yoga and meditation classes, and a walking tour of literary Paris.
Faculty includes internationally renowned author and writing coach Kathleen Spivack (fiction, poetry, nonfiction), David Shields (fiction, book-length essay), Diana Norma Szokoloyai (poetry, nonfiction), Rita Banerjee (poetry, fiction), Jessica Reidy (fiction, poetry), and Elissa Lewis (yoga, meditation).
If you’d like to join us in Paris, please apply online at cww.submittable.com by May 5, 2015, and include $5 application screening fee and a 5-page writing sample. (Due to limited seats, early applications are encouraged, but check for rolling admission after deadline, depending on availability).
Deadline: May 5, 2015
Featured Faculty:
David Shields is the internationally bestselling author of twenty books, including Reality Hunger (named one of the best books of 2010 by more than thirty publications), The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead (New York Times bestseller), and Black Planet (finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award). Forthcoming are War Is Beautiful (powerHouse, November 2015), Flip-Side (powerHouse, March 2016) and Other People (Knopf, 2017). The recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, Shields has published essays and stories in the New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, Esquire, Yale Review, Village Voice, Salon, Slate, McSweeney’s, and Believer. His work has been translated into twenty languages.
Kathleen Spivack is the author of A History of Yearning, winner of the Sows Ear International Poetry Prize 2010, first runner up in the New England Book Festival, and winner of the London Book Festival; Moments of Past Happiness (Earthwinds/Grolier Editions 2007); The Beds We Lie In (Scarecrow 1986), nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; The Honeymoon (Graywolf 1986); Swimmer in the Spreading Dawn (Applewood 1981); The Jane Poems (Doubleday 1973); Flying Inland (Doubleday 1971); Robert Lowell and His Circle (2011) and a novel, Unspeakable Things. She is a recipient of the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award 2010, the 2010 Erica Mumford Award, and the 2010 Paumanok Award. Published in numerous magazines and anthologies, some of her work has been translated into French. Other publications include The New Yorker, Ploughshares, The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, Massachusetts Review, Virginia Quarterly, The Southern Review, Harvard Review, The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, Agni, New Letters, and others. Her work is featured in numerous anthologies. She has also won several International Solas Prizes for “Best Essays.”
Diana Norma Szkoloyai is author of the poetry books Roses in the Snow and Parallel Sparrows (Finishing Line Press). Her writing and hybrid art have appeared in Lyre Lyre, Dr. Hurley’s Snake Oil Cure, The Fiction Project, Teachers as Writers, Polarity, The Boston Globe, The Dudley Review, Up the Staircase, Area Zinc Art Magazine, Belltower & the Beach, and Human Rights News. Founding Literary Arts Director of Chagall Performance Art Collaborative and co-director of the Cambridge Writer’s Workshop, she holds an Ed.M from Harvard and an M.A. in French Literature from the University of Connecticut.
Rita Banerjee is a writer, and received her PhD in Comparative Literature from Harvard University. She holds an MFA in Poetry and her writing has been published in Poets for Living Waters, The New Renaissance, The Fiction Project, Jaggery, The Crab Creek Review, The Dudley Review, Objet d’Art, Vox Populi, Dr. Hurley’s Snake-Oil Cure, and Chrysanthemum among other journals. Her first collection of poems,Cracklers at Night, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2010 and received First Honorable Mention for Best Poetry Book at the 2011-2012 Los Angeles Book Festival. Her novella, A Night with Kali, was digitized by the Brooklyn Art-house Co-op in 2011. She is a co-director of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop, and her writing has been recently featured on HER KIND by VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and on KBOO Radio’s APA Compass in Portland, Oregon.
Jessica Reidy earned her MFA in Fiction at Florida State University and a B.A. from Hollins University. Her work is Pushcart-nominated and has appeared in Narrative Magazine as Short Story of the Week, The Los Angeles Review, Arsenic Lobster, and other journals. She’s a staff-writer and the Outreach Editor for Quail Bell Magazine, Managing Editor for VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts, Art Editor for The Southeast Review, and Visiting Professor for the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop retreats. She teaches creative writing and is a certified yoga instructor and Reiki Master. Jessica also works her Romani (Gypsy) family trades, fortune telling, energy healing, and dancing. Jessica is currently writing her first novel set in post-WWII Paris about Coco Charbonneau, the half-Romani burlesque dancer and fortune teller of Zenith Circus, who becomes a Nazi hunter. You can learn more at www.jessicareidy.com.
Elissa Lewis is the Yoga & Arts Coordinator of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop. She began her journey with yoga in 2006, when she moved to France and made the practice part of her daily routine. She saw yoga as a lifestyle, not only a class, helping her to clear her mind and have more compassion for herself and others. In 2010 she moved to New York and completed her teacher training at Laughing Lotus, a creative, soulful yoga studio that teaches the student to ‘move like yourself.’ She’s taught private and group classes in Manhattan and Brooklyn ever since. Visit her website for informative yoga sequences and information.
Extended Deadline – Apply to the CWW Summer Writing Retreat in Granada, Andalucía, Spain by May 1!
Join the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop on our summer writing & yoga retreat to Granada, Spain. Located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains in Andalucía, Granada is one of the gems of Spain and has inspired writers from Washington Irving to Salman Rushdie to Ali Smith. Indulge in delicious Andalucían cuisine and traditional Arab baths. Work on your existing manuscript, or look to the beauty and warmth of Granada to inspire all-new projects.
The retreat offers the opportunity for writers of all genres and levels to work alongside award-winning authors & editors like Peter Orner (fiction, nonfiction),Rita Banerjee (poetry, fiction), Diana Norma Szkoloyai (poetry, nonfiction), Jessica Reidy (fiction, poetry) and Elissa Lewis (yoga, meditation) to hone their craft and expand their writing skills, while working on new or existing projects.
Our Andalucían writing retreat will take place from August 3-10, 2015, and the cost of the workshop is $2950, which includes lodging, craft of writing seminars and writing workshops, yoga classes, room cleaning, and breakfast. Optional add-ons include reiki healing and aromatherapy sessions.
If you’d like to join us in Granada, please apply online at cww.submittable.comby May 1, 2015, and include a $5 application screening fee and a 5-page writing sample. (Due to limited seats, early applications are encouraged, but check for rolling admission after deadline, depending on availability).
Deadline: May 1, 2015
Featured Faculty:
Peter Orner Chicago born Peter Orner’s fiction and non-fiction has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic Monthly, Granta, The Paris Review, McSweeney’s, The Southern Review, The Forward, The San Francisco Chronicle, andPloughshares. Stories have been anthologized in Best American Stories and twice won a Pushcart Prize. Orner was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship (2006), as well as the two-year Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship (2007-2008). A film version of one of Orner’s stories, “The Raft” with a screenplay by Orner and the film’s director, Rob Jones, is currently in production and stars Ed Asner. Esther Stories (Houghton Mifflin/ Mariner, 2001) was awarded the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction, and was a Finalist for the Pen Hemingway Award and the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award. Esther Stories was a 2001 New York Times Notable Book.
Rita Banerjee is a writer, and received her PhD in Comparative Literature from Harvard University. She holds an MFA in Poetry and her writing has been published in Poets for Living Waters, The New Renaissance, The Fiction Project, Jaggery, The Crab Creek Review, The Dudley Review, Objet d’Art, Vox Populi, Dr. Hurley’s Snake-Oil Cure, and Chrysanthemumamong other journals. Her first collection of poems,Cracklers at Night, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2010 and received First Honorable Mention for Best Poetry Book at the 2011-2012 Los Angeles Book Festival. Her novella, A Night with Kali, was digitized by the Brooklyn Art-house Co-op in 2011. She is a co-director of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop, and her writing has been recently featured onHER KIND by VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and on KBOO Radio’s APA Compass in Portland, Oregon.
Diana Norma Szkoloyai is author of the poetry books Roses in the Snow and Parallel Sparrows(Finishing Line Press). Her writing and hybrid art have appeared in Lyre Lyre, Dr. Hurley’s Snake Oil Cure, The Fiction Project, Teachers as Writers, Polarity, The Boston Globe, The Dudley Review, Up the Staircase, Area Zinc Art Magazine, Belltower & the Beach, and Human Rights News. Founding Literary Arts Director of Chagall Performance Art Collaborative and co-director of the Cambridge Writer’s Workshop, she holds an Ed.M from Harvard and an M.A. in French Literature from the University of Connecticut.
Jessica Reidy earned her MFA in Fiction at Florida State University and a B.A. from Hollins University. Her work is Pushcart-nominated and has appeared in Narrative Magazine as Short Story of the Week, The Los Angeles Review, Arsenic Lobster, and other journals. She’s a staff-writer and the Outreach Editor for Quail Bell Magazine, Managing Editor for VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts, Art Editor for The Southeast Review, and Visiting Professor for the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop retreats. She teaches creative writing and is a certified yoga instructor and Reiki Master. Jessica also works her Romani (Gypsy) family trades, fortune telling, energy healing, and dancing. Jessica is currently writing her first novel set in post-WWII Paris about Coco Charbonneau, the half-Romani burlesque dancer and fortune teller of Zenith Circus, who becomes a Nazi hunter. You can learn more at www.jessicareidy.com.
Elissa Lewis is the Yoga & Arts Coordinator of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop. She began her journey with yoga in 2006, when she moved to France and made the practice part of her daily routine. She saw yoga as a lifestyle, not only a class, helping her to clear her mind and have more compassion for herself and others. In 2010 she moved to New York and completed her teacher training at Laughing Lotus, a creative, soulful yoga studio that teaches the student to ‘move like yourself.’ She’s taught private and group classes in Manhattan and Brooklyn ever since. Visit her websitefor informative yoga sequences and information.
CWW Board Member Jonah Kruvant Launches New Novel
CWW Exec Board Member Jonah Kruvant sold and autographed his new book, “The Last Book Ever Written,” at our table during the conference.
If you visited our table at AWP 2015, you may have gotten the chance to meet CWW Executive Board Member Jonah Kruvant, who was premiering new novel, The Last Book Ever Written, at the event. If you weren’t able to pick up the novel at AWP, you still have a chance to get a copy of Kruvant’s novel at its book launches in New York and New Jersey. Kruvant will be releasing the book at Cornelia St. Cafe at 29 Cornelia St. in Greenwich Village, NY on May 2, 2015 from 3-5 pm. And here’s a little bit more about Kruvant’s dystopian satire:
Imagine a world where people have chips in their brains, shoot needles into their veins to enter a virtual reality, and where all forms of creativity are illegal and punishable by death. This is the futuristic setting of Kruvant’s novel, The Last Book Ever Written, which follows a detective who goes undercover to expose a community of creators. While on the case, he unravels hidden truths about the world, discovers a secret from his past, and finds himself compelled to write. The book satirizes our competitive, success-drive society, foresees the effects of the economic recession, and warns what could happen if we let technology get out of hand.
– Alex Carrigan
Cambridge Writers’ Workshop at AWP 2015 Recap!
Our annual AWP reading this year was “Books and Bones at Boneshaker Books.”
Boneshaker Books, a small bookstore that hosted the CWW’s annual AWP reading.
The audience at the reading, awaiting to hear a selection of poetry and prose from our readers.
Anca Szilagyi, our first reader, shared a piece called “Cauliflower Tells You,” featured in Monkey Bicycle.
CWW Exec board member Jonah Kruvant read an excerpt from his new book, “The Last Book Ever Written.”
Micah Dean Hicks shared a flash fiction piece and a nonfiction piece during the reading.
CWW Intern Alex Carrigan read an Adam and Eve satire called “The First Debate.”
Michele Nereim read an excerpt of a larger piece.
Bianca Stone read a few poems from her book “Someone Else’s Wedding Vows.”
Jessica Piazza read poems from her collections “Interrobang” and “This is Not a Sky.”
Jess Burnquist shared a few poems, all with a thematic inspiration from maritime flags
Dena Rash Guzman reading from a manuscript titled “Joseph,” about a feminist’s complicated relationship with the status quo.
Leah Umansky, reading a poem from her collection, “Domestic Uncertainties.”
Sheila McMullin read “Bad Woman” excerpts from her poetry collection “daughterarriums”
Brenda Peynado, reading a piece entitled “Blue Baby,” featured in the Mid-American Review
Big thanks to all our readers at the event. Back row, left to right: Jonah Kruvant, Jessica Piazza, Micah Dean Hicks, Alex Carrigan, Leah Umansky, Michele Nereim. Front row, left to right: Dena Rash Guzman, Jess Burnquist, Sheila McMullin, and Brenda Peynado. Not pictured: Anca Szilagyi and Bianca Stone.
CWW Intern Alex Carrigan manning the booth at AWP 2015.
From April 9-11, the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop was present at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs 2015 conference in Minneapolis, MN. Our organization was there with multiple goals in mind, from promoting our CREDO anthology to presses at the event to advertising our summer retreats in Paris and Granada. Our group was fortunate enough to be upgraded from a table to a full booth, giving us more room to work with and allowing visitors to see more of our materials and programs. Visitors were able to take flyers, CWW buttons, and even contribute to our daily exquisite corpse poems.
CWW Exec Board member Jonah Kruvant sold his new book, “The Last Book Ever Written,” at our booth.
Our staff for the event included CWW intern Alex Carrigan, who helped set the booth up and ran around networking with various publishers and presses. Executive Board member Jonah Kruvant was also at our table on Friday and Saturday. At the table, Kruvant sold and signed his new book, The Last Book Ever Written, a dystopian satire just released from PanAm Books.
Dena Rash Guzman and Leah Umansky, friends of the CWW, also were also present at our table for selling and signing their works. Umansky sold her Mad Men inspired chapbook, Don Dreams and I Dream, along with her book Domestic Uncertainties. Guzman was there with her poetry collection called Life Cycle, and both authors promoted the CWW-sponsored reading on Saturday.
Leah Umansky and Dena Rash Guzman signed their works at our table on Friday.
On Saturday, the CWW headed over to Boneshaker Books for our scheduled reading “Books and Bones at Boneshaker Books.” The event featured twelve readers. Along with Carrigan, Kruvant, Guzman, and Umansky, readers included Anca Szilagyi, Micah Dean Hicks, Michele Nereim, Bianca Stone, Jessica Piazza, Jess Burnquist, Sheila McMullin, and Brenda Peynado. The two hour reading featured a great mix of poetry, short fiction, and book excerpts.
We had a great time at AWP, and we can’t wait to see you next year at AWP 2016 in Los Angeles!
Cambridge Writers’ Workshop’s AWP 2015 Exquisite Corpse #3
The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop is busy at the Association of Writers’ and Writers Programs Conference in Minneapolis this week, but while we’re not promoting our upcoming retreats or our CREDO anthology, we’re encouraging visitors to contribute to our exquisite corpse poem. Every day, we’ll post a new poem to the website. You can read Thursday’s poem here and Friday’s poem here.
Saturday’s CWW AWP “Corps Exquis”
I am a man weighed down by burden
of the unphysical sort, buckets of oil spelunking
on their own minus the centrifuge of dystopian
orgasms.
The spine is linked with marshmallows
melted over the sweet potato pie of ravaded
America.
…swallowing dust, digging dirt,
her white dress soiled, soul tainted…
eyes like tangerines, a Parliament
between her teeth, “Kill me,” she
screams into the asphalt.
My eyes are dried into raisins.
Cambridge Writers' Workshop 